it should be great day for football fans. thanks for watching "state of the union." i'm candy crowley in washington. if you missed any part of the shows, tune in through itunes. "fareed zakaria gps" is here next. this is gps, the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm "final scor i'm fareed zakaria. today, mahmoud ahmadinejad, the president of iraq. why he feels they would prevail in any war and his surprising apology to the people of new york. also on the show, bain capital. mom's private firm is no longer quiet. it's in the headlines, on the campaign trail, and on your tv screen. what's it all about? steve pagliuca who is one of the people who runs the show joins

me. just when we need it most. what is it? i'll explain. and finally, candidate barack obama of brazil? but first here's my take. president obama has sewed up the poll this week and the republicans have been quick to figure out the problem. mitt romney. peggy noon nan said his rolling campaign has been a calamity. shouldn't we be so concerned it's income tent as noonan calls it given his reputation for, well, competence. after all he founded one of the leading firms, turned around the salt le city oliympics as was a very successful governor. how did he get so clumsy so fast? in fact, the problem is not romney.

it tees republican party. given the manner in which it's moved and the pressures, any nominee would face the same challenge. can you be a serious candidate for the general election while not outraging the republican base? fox news anchor refused to dwell on romney's economic policies he would put in place. why wouldn't mitt romney fluent in economics explain his economic policy? because any sensible answer would cause a firestorm in his party. it's obvious with a deficit of more than 7% of gross go mess tick product, any solution to our budgetary problems has to involve spending cuts and tax increases. ronald reagan agreed to tax increases when it hit 4%. george w. bush did. but today's republican parties is organized around the

proposition that no matter the circumstances, there must never be a tax increase of any kind. the simpson-bowles proposal calls for 1% for every $3 of spending cut bus every republican presidential candidate during the primaries including romney pledge thad he or she would not accept $10 of spending cuts if that meant $10 of tax increases. so romney could present a serious plan and then h would face a revolt within his own party. so his solution has been to be it lerly vague about how to deal with the actually deaf sit. when pressed for details he said, the devil's in the details. he's right. were he to get specific he would be committing ideological blasphemy. instead he talks about freedom and capitalism. the same pattern emerges on immigration. he says he wanted to solve the immigration issue permanently

but he can't propose anything practical because that would talk about legalizing in some form the 12 million illegal immigrants in this country and that would in turn cause a revote in the republican party. so as a deficit, romney has a plan but it's a secret. the republican party has imposed a new kiechld political correctness on their leaders. they cannot speed certain words, taxes, talk about their speculations or ideas or their path because these are forbidden. he's trying to run a campaign without running afoul of his party's strictures. as for himself he's twisted himself into a pretzel, spoken vac youously. that's a straightjacket even peggy noon nan's eloquence can't get him out of this. for more on this, read my "washington pos

"washington post" column this week on cnn.com/fa reek. let's get started. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com nt for . for eight years ma'am mud ahmadinejad has come to the u.s. general assembly and every time he's caused controversy, making accusations. this year was different. it was mostly platitudes about word peace but he had plenty of sharp comments in a series of interviews. his conversation with me was his final one. perhaps his final one on the world stage. you see, iran's election law says he can't rub again and elections are set for 2013. so i asked him about israeli strikes and obama's warnings. you've indicate thad yd that yo that the israeli prime minister's threats toward iran are ones you don't take very

seriously, but i was wondering how seriously you take the rhetoric of the president of the united states. president obama said at the unite ed nations he was determined to prevent iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. do you regard that as a bluff? >> translator: you set forth two or three questions here. i have never used the word "bluff." when we say we do not take it seriously, we mean that it impacts -- it does not impact our policies in the slightest. iran is a vast country, is a great country, let's assume a few terrorists come and assassinate some of our officials. will the country be damaged? >> no. a couple of bombs will be set to

explode. will the country be destroyed? >> no. we see the ziep of regime at the same level as the bombers and the criminals and the terrorists and even if they do something, even if they do something hypothetically, it will not affect us fundamentally, but, vis-a-vis, the expressions of the president of the united states because i do not to speak in any way about anything that may be interpreted as meddling with internal affairs, but perhaps myself, compared to everyone else in the world, i am perhaps much more keen than anyone else, not only that there will be no more productions of nuclear bombs around the world. that even those that exist today would be eliminated.

>> if there were an israeli strike on iran, there are other senior iranians who have said things that are much more forceful about how iran would respond and they seem to take it very seriously. the head of the revolutionary guard said that in response to an israeli strike, iran would strike back with missiles, and i think he says nothing will remain of israel. i don't think any spot would remain safe. is that also your view of what the nature of iranian retaliation would be? >> translator: i understand this, that iranians never start a war unprovoked, never start a war, period. but if they are attacked, they defend themselves very well, quite well.

and no one throughout our history has been able to gain and come out on top from an attack on iran. >> president ahmadinejad, you said in a couple of your interviews that you don't really think much is going to happen on the negotiations on iran's nuclear program until after the american elections. what do you think will happen after the elections? do you expect that at that point there will be a new proposal from the major powers, or do you think iran will present another proposal? >> translator: as you touched upon, yes, during a couple of interviews, yes, i did speak of this. i think at the end of the day that the decision-making, vis-a-vis, iran's nuclear issue with 5 plus 1, is a very important decision and it is one -- one of the most important

players in the 5 plus 1 equation is america, but we have seen during many years that as we approach the united states presidential elections, no important decisions are made. also keeping in mind that certainly following the elections, certainly the atmosphere will be much more stable and important decisions can be made and announced. we have set proposals. we're holding dialogue as of late, they have had productive talks and we do hope to be able to take some steps forward. >> when we come back, syria. the death toll has reached 20,000. will iran finally see the light and end the support for the assad regime. aisle ask president ahmadinejad when we return. [ male announcer ] citi turns 200 this year.

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so i brought it to mike at meineke. we gave her car a free road handling check. i like free. free is good. my money. my choice. my meineke. bashar al assad's regime is running out of money and running out of arms, so how does the syrian regime keep going. many analysts point to iran's assistance. will iran change its course? listen to what president ahmadinejad says. mr. president let me ask you a question about human life. you spoke a great deal while you were here in new york about the value you place on human life. every life is important, you said.

the government of syria has by all accounts killed about 20,000 people, about 250,000 syrians, men, women, and children have fled the country, and 1.2 million syrians have been displaced within the country. why will you not call on bashar al assad to resign and leave as president of syria. >> translator: do you think that if we do such a thing that the problem will be resolved? >> you say that you care about human life. you should take a moral stand. >> translator: yes, but do you think that if we make the request that you asked of, that the problem will be resolved? it's not so. the problem of syria is very complicated. and it requires a just and right solution, and i'm truly sorry and saddened not only in syria

but anywhere in the world from any side where there are people losing their lives. the opposition members, the syrian army, they're all from syria. they're all the people of syria. why should they be killed? there can be two proposals and solutions for syria. one is war faye. but there's also a second way of thinking, a national understanding. and i do believe that if both sides sit and reach an understanding on a free election, a national understanding on a free election and follow -- and become sub serve yent to the choice of the people, all sides should accept the wish of the syrian people. therefore we are standing up a contact group, and i do hope that they will have their first

meeting and gathering here in new york city, thereby we can succeed in bringing both sides closer together so they can reach an agreement for a political process. in my opinion syria has no military solution. and i think it is amply clear. i think my opinion is amply clear about syria. i've said it 50-plus times thus far. we are on the side of the people. everywhere we ore on the side of the people. >> but the people are killed by the government. you say do you're on the side of the people and yet you support a government that is massacring its people. >> translator: you mean that we should then enter the scene and provide arms like other countries have in order to -- for the battling groups in order for the war to continue? is that your opinion? >> no. my opinion is you should ask for the president to step down since he is presiding over a mass

massacre. >> translator: well, we make all kinds of requests. we have announced it officially. do you think with our request things will come to an end? >> you mentioned the contact group that you believe could be a path to a negotiating or diplomatic solution, and this is a group that is meant to be -- include egypt, turkey, iran, and saudi arabia. but at the first meeting of the group, saudi arabia refused to attend and let it be known that the reason they would not attend is they would not sit down with iran in the same room. how do you get over that obstacle? >> translator: this i hear from you for the first time. >> i can tell you it's based on my reporting. it's true. i mean you know it is a fact they didn't attend the meeting. >> translator: this is something -- what they have announced

officially is that they said our minister of foreign affairs is ill. more with president mahmoud ahmadinejad. i quote the koran to him to show him that he might be wrong about something, but first one of america's secret weapons to stay competitive is falling apart. what in the world right after this. so, what do you think? [ engine revs ] i'll take it. [ male announcer ] it's chevy truck month. now during chevy truck month, get 0% apr financing for 60 months or trade up to get the 2012 chevy silverado all-star edition with a total value of $8,000. hurry in before they're all gone! one is for a clean, wedomestic energy future that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity, putting us to work here in america

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now for our "what in the world" segment. silicon valley has been a key drive over u.s. growth in the last two decades. just look at the rise of apple, google, and facebook and all the jobs and opportunities and new companies they've created. but the secret sauce behind the success might be running out. a new book call ed "the immigrat exodus," a former tech entrepreneur who now studies and lectures of imgation. he has fascinating findings. he says between 1995 and 2005 more thereafter half have been founded by immigrants but when he updated his findings in 2012 he found a proportion gnat

number had dropped by a fifth from 52% to 44%. that seems like a small drop but it's a ratio that should be rising, not dropping. they're now in prime position to found companies. according to the 2012 "open for business" study immigrants are twice as likely to start a business as native born americans and yet silicon valley has seen a decline in immigrant-founded companies. silicon valley tends to be a harbinger of things to come in the national economy. nationwide it accounted for the creation of half a million jobs tweens 1995 and 2005. so why are we sees a reverse brain drain? on the one hand, we're now seeing a tangible impact of what i call the rise of the rest. the u.s. remains a pre-eminent power with the best institutions of higher learning and research in the world, but increasingly

if you're an immigrant from india, china, or brazil, you can find competitive opportunities for growth at home too. as these economies continue to develop, they will invest more in infrastructure, making businesses more attractive. but another development, one which we can control, is even more worrying. we're losing our huge advantage in immigration, especially in skill-based immigration. our system is broken. he points out that we allocate 140,000 green cards or permanent residency status to people who are here on work visas. these visas allow workers to jump shep from working on a company to starting on their own, creating jobs, but the law stipulates that no nationality can claim more than 7% of these cards. now, given that half of the applicants are indian and

chinese, the same number that's dominant in the silicon valley, we have a problem. the ironry is for once president obama and governor romney know we have a problem. on a recent prime time special on cnn, "fixing immigration," i pointed out that canada and australia now have larger foreign-born populations than the united states. both of those countries revamped their immigration systems to attract and keep the best and brightest foreigners, but we're closing the door to many of the smartest potential entrepreneurs in the world. if we want job creators, let's stop kicking them out of the country. when we come back, mahmoud ahmadinejad apologizes to new yorkers. more of my interview with the president of iran. this country was built by working people.

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international troops in eastern afghanista it brings the death toll inside afghanistan over 2,000 over the course of the 11-year war. the saturday incident is the latest apparent attack by members of afghan's security forces against nato military members. and on the campaign trail, president obama heads to nevada today where he'll hold a campaign rally this evening in las vegas. the president is staying in the state until wednesday for debate preparations. he'll be joined by john kerry who ee playing the role of mitt romney. there's trouble for florida's republican party where a voter registration controversy is brewing. the state's republican party fired a private consulting firm it hired to help register voters. suspicious forms have been discovered in at least five florida counties. those are your top stories. "reliable sources" is up at the top of the hour. now back to "fareed zakaria

gps." president ahmadinejad has a history of making broad historical comments about iran, u.s. foreign policy, israel, and much else. so i talked to him about the history of the jews. listen to what he said. you're a student of history, and you said something that i was struck by in one of the gatherings that you were at. you spoke abo israel and you said it has no roots in history in the region. and i was wondering whether you really believe that because as you know, of course, jews have lived there for thousands of years, and we know this, of course, because there are repeated references to the children of israel in the koran. there are 43 references to the children of israel. in fact, one of them, chapter 17, 104, we say to the children

of israel, dwell in this land, live in this land, referring to the land that is now israel. so do you dispute these facts or do you accept that there is some connection between the children of israel and this land? >> translator: so we're trying to fabricate to make the root as connection? so you do not draw any distinction between the zionists and the jews? >> i'm asking you. >> translator: i am -- i have always maintained that the zionist regime has no historical roots in the region. i -- why would i say that the jews have no historical root? they were also in iran, a great many of them. so that means that iran belongs to the jews? iran belongs to the iranians, whether they're jews, whether they're muslims, whether they're christians. please pay close attention here, sir.

the borderline is quite thin. zionism is a doctrine, is a school of thought, is an aggressive school of thought. it has nothing to do with the jewish people. at the same time, the majority of those who are there now have come from other lands. they're immigrants. many of them recently converted to judaism. so the way this regime took shape doesn't matter. yes, for a long time, jews, christians and muslims lived together for a long time in peace and stability and they will continue to do so in the future. it is now a jewish/christian/muslim fight. we're speaking of a group of zionists who came and gained the reins of power. >> mr. president let me ask you this in a dirnts way that many people have asked you.

it relates to many comment yos have made about israel in the past. i want to ask you if you recognize why people get so nervous by your comments about israel because you're the president of a country, and presidents of countries do not speak like this. they do not speak about the elimination of another member state of the united nations. they don't speak about wiping it off the map. and when you take that rhetoric and you add to it the fact that iran is developing a nuclear program, it makes many people in the united states, outside the united states worried that the intention of iran is to use that nuclear capacity to eliminate israel, to wipe it off the map. >> translator: so really the people of the united states are concerned? they're shaking? where do you -- what do you base

this on? the rest of the nations are worried, preoccupied, and trim bling at this thought? what for? we are friends with all nations. yourself as a reporter, you must know know, as a member of the media, you must know that ahmadinejad is quite popular and loves everyone iran is love and everyone loved iran eek ooe equally. most people are on the side of iran. there are more fundamental issued to be discussed perhaps. >> iran is not -- >> but it's become repetitive, sir. for seven years i have been answering it for you. >> i understand. but every time you answer it raises more doubts. the problem the people have is you talk about elimination, you talk about wiping off -- >> translator: how do you pretend to speak on be f of the people? it raises doubt and stirs doubts in whom? people have given your their

vote of confidence to represent their pip point of view. you're representing a medial outlet and representing their views. let's go to the streets of new york tonight right now and let's interview the people and find out what the people say. let's find out what the people truly say. what do the people have to -- >> mr. president, you say iran is loved -- >> these are fabricated. >> but iran is under the most crippling sanctions of any of the countries in the world right now. you are being sanctioned. you're isolated. your gdp is shrinking. by some accounts. your currency we know has dropped 50%. what i'm trying to explain to you is the reason you have this international pressure, these sanctions is in part because people doubt iran's intentions. >> translator: no. i'd like to ask you first of all, people, not to speak on behalf of the nations and the people.

were the people who put us under sanction or a handful of western governments? which people brought us under sanctions? many of the europeans companies are currently as we speak conducting trade with us. some of them do it in hiding but they do, secretly but they do conduct that trade. you hear some news, and you believe that iran's economy is n in chaos. it is not so. it is not so, let me reassure you. we -- we came from being the 22nd ranked economy in the world to being the 17th largest, and as we speak, this growth of capital and investment in the world continues. of course, we're not fans of sanction bus in anyone thinks sanctions will bring iran to her knees, they are certainly police staken. we have learned to live under these circumstances. we don't like to live like this,

but at the owned testify day a handful of european countries and the united states, of course, would like to have relations with them. it would benefit both sides. but without them, we have learned to live quite well. we have been living quite well. we have trade relations with over 180 countries throughout the world. america and her allies do not represent the entire world. accept this. let's come out of some of these thick shells and change our views and update our views of the world. the time of oppression is gone. >> let me ask you a final question, mr. president. you've been to new york many, many times, much more than any president of iran. your predecembssor came twice. his predecessor never came. you obviously like new york. are you going miss coming to new

york. >> keep in mind, we didn't come to new york. we came to the u.n. general assembly which happens to be in new york. and during the time i'm inside the building or the hotel. i haven't gone anywhere else. it's a good city. it has great people. and there are good people everywhere. >> let me ask you one more. >> but allow me out of respect for you and through your camera to express my gratitude to the people of new york. would you allow me. when we travel down the street to united nations and come back, we see limitations imposeded on pedestrians, so it creates disturbances for people and of course we're never happy to see such disturbances, but, of course, the police and the security forces to whom i'm very grateful worked extremely hard, but the people of new york were very patient. and if we caused any serious disruption and disturbances, i

would like to hereby extend my sincerest apologies to them and thank them for their kindness. >> mr. president, plesh to have you on. >> translator: god bless you. may you have good health and success. >> it was as fascinating a conversation as every. mr. president seemed to have caused. he was careful to not be insindh rare but he was passionate and defiant as about iran's military action. in preparing for the interview i was struck by the conversation going on within iran. a senior political figure gave an interview in which he said that after the next election in iran, iran would move from radicalism to ration alt. another powerful politician and potentially a presidential candidate said it would go from

fundamentalism to moderation. we'll have to watch to see if that's true. up next, what do you think the folks at bain capital thing about all the attack ads against them and what do they think of their founder's presidential chances? we'll ask one of the men who runs that company, steve pagliuca. with exercise and ensure muscle health. i've got revigor. what's revigor? it's the amino acid metabolite, hmb to help rebuild muscle and strength naturally lost over time. [ female announcer ] ensure muscle health has revigor and protein to help protect, preserve, and promote muscle health. keeps you from getting soft. [ major nutrition ] ensure. nutrition in charge!

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all of a sudden everyone knows the name bain capital, the private equity firm that mitt romney founded and has been discussed and attacked during the presidential campaign, but most of the top executives in the private equity industry have stayed silent throughout all of this campaign drama. i wanted to hear bain's side of the story and steve pagliuca took me up on the offer. he's's one who runs the company. he ran the senate seat last year, losing to elizabeth warren. he's also the owner of the boston celtics. good to have you here. >> good to be here. >> let me show you somt clips from the democratic convection and get your reaction. you've seen this before. >> folks, the bain way may bring

you the highest profits but it's not the way to lead your country from the highest office. >> so what did you think when you listened to that? >> well, look. hyperbole has been part of the elections sense the day of john adams and there's no one better than joe biden to give us a little hyperbole as we all know. i think people discount that hyperbole. we know it's hyperbole. we wake up every day trying to build businesses. it's a misnomer out there that we profit by shrinking companies. in fact, it's just the opposite. private equity creates value by growing great companies. >> so whem people look at the attack ads, that you take a company, a steel company, you send the jobs overseas because that cuts the costs which it undoubtedly does, and in other case use load yours up with debt and you sell it, you don't think that's an inaccurate picture.

>> that's totally inaccurate. in fact. we started a steel company in a cornfield in indiana. it's called steel dynamics. it has 6,000 employees today, one of the largest steel companies in the country. what happens in the campaigns, they need to use hyperbole to make these attacks. we have 350 investments, those companies over 28 years have grown twice as fast as the s&p 500. they've created $125 billion of new sales so that's extraordinary growth and that's given bain capital an extraordinary track record. when you have that kind of growth, that growth creates jobs, helps the companies. >> you're not disputing it. you're saying that with a small -- >> we've had 80% of the companies have grown revenues. what happens in these deals is they time shift. for example, that steel company, we bought them. it was going to be closed down.

we saved all those jobs. we invested $100 million in the plachblt it grew. six years later we took the dividends for our investors like all corporations do. six years later japanese dumped steel, prices went down. hundreds went down and we're a vick testify of that. you can't press that and say it causes one thing inside the other. >> let me ask you about the tax issues. you get paid cared interest. it's tax on capital gains. there are lots of people who believe it should be taxed as ordinary income. would you support moving the carried interest so it's taxed as interest rule. >> it came about always sweat equity. if someone came to you and said i want to open a restaurant. you take 80% of the profits and i'm take 20%.

that's what care rid interest is. it's what the venture capital firms do and that's how people do. it incents people to look at it. all the way to farm countries to carried interest because we need to raise more revenue. >> what do you think of this man as a leader? he hired you, i assume. >> he gave me my first job back at bane company. he's an incredible family man. he's got a good sense of humor. it sometimes gets him in trouble but he geeset great sense of humor, and he's have very good sense ofhumor. i'm heartened by the fact that we have two fantastic candidates. i worked with president obama as well. they boenlt have a high degree of education and both knowledgebling. i think we're lucky to have two great people running in the elections, especially given how they are.

>> you have all these investments around america and increedingly around the world. what is your sense of the american economy? there are some signs that the economy is actually beginning to recover. housing is back. but yet the actual gdp numbers don't seem to move much. what do you think? >> there are some good sighs. housing has moved back a little bit. we've had a boon in energy. so -- and consumers have paid down a lot of debt. the bad side is there's an increasing government debt at the state and federal level. if you think back in 1982 this was a large outcry when the national debt passed 1 trillion. we're now adding 1 trillion per euro. soon the interest of the national debt could equal the whole amount in 1982 when you and i were here. i think it's a huge problem and

a real problem. i'm hopeful that when the government forms that cob will address this problem. we've had such a polarized cob. that's part of the whole problem. the president can onto do so much. 've got to get congress in involved. the roadmap doesn't cut it down entirely. what i love about bain capital, we had republicans, democrats. reverse views. but what we duo is sit down and try to solve problems. 's what the government has to do, sit down and come to the middle and solve the erbs. america is the greatest country in the world. high education, we've got to capitalize on those and move fired. >> when you look at your companies, do you see growth beginning across the board? do you see it as patchy?

>> i would see it as patchy, but it's beginning. one thing we can emphasize in america is we can bring innovation to the rest of the world. we have not been an export-driven economy because we have had such a large market here. i think if we do that in america, that he's another way to create jobs. >> steve, pleasure to have you on. >> it's been great. >> thanks for joining us. up next, why a number of brazilian candidates are going to if vote for a kpaenlt named barack obama. i'm explain. [ male announcer ] it started long ago. it's called passion.

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after years of rumors and speculation, china this week finally officially launched its first aircraft carrier.

that makes ten countries that view such vessels. eight of them have one carrier each and italy has two. that brings me to my question of the week. how many aircraft carriers does the u.s. have, is it 3, 7, 11, or 15. stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. go to cnn.com/fareed for more of the gps challenge and analysis. you can follow us on twitter and facebook. you can also get shoes and specials on itunes. you can get the audio podcast for free or buy the video version. itunes.com/fareed. this week's book of the week is by jeffrey toobin of the new yorker and cnn. the book "the oath:the obama white house and the supreme court." it is what is arguably what is the most important of the government, not the executive

branch. the judiciary. now for a last look. i this ink we all know there's a game named barack obama running for president of the united states. but did you know there's not one, not two, but five running in brazil and 11 more obamas with first names? candidates and local elections have adopted some surprising names to try to distinguish themselves to get attention. there are multiple batmen and robin, rambo, spider-man, and a few michael jacksons. some of the candidates had the good luck of being born with names that might give them a name with political edge but maybe not. a couple of jimmy carters, richard nixon and others. the candidates are likely to be remembered. president obama, if you need a new jingle, i know where you ca